Greg Bailey to exhibit “Post-Colonial Paraphernalia” at Creativ Space
The debut solo exhibition of the Jamaican artist Greg Bailey is entitled Post-Colonial Paraphernalia and will feature ten new oil paintings. The exhibition will be on view at Creativ Space, 2 Windsor Avenue, Kingston 5, from Wednesday, December 8 to Wednesday December 22, 2021.
Greg Bailey was born 1986 in Warsop, Trelawny. He earned his BFA from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in 2010, where he now lectures, and an MFA from the Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts in 2019. His Jamaican exhibitions include: Young Talent 2015, the 2012 National Biennial and the Jamaica Biennial 2014 and 2017 at the National Gallery of Jamaica; and the And I Resume the Struggle exhibitions at the Olympia Art Gallery. He has also exhibited in London, England, the United States, and Stuttgart, Germany. His awards include: The People’s Choice Award at the Due West 2020 exhibition, National Gallery West, Montego Bay; the Danforth and CHASE Fund Scholarships; and the Dawn Scott Memorial Award. Bailey is the author of Future Relics: Monumentalizing Afro-Caribbean Identity (2019).
Greg Bailey uses a variety of media and techniques, including painting, drawing, digital design, and sculpture, which he deploys in an ongoing investigation of the Black mass in post-colonial spaces such as the Caribbean, where lingering colonial residues perpetrate a confusing notion of self and space. The resulting psychological violence is internalized, and shapes and complicates the socio-political landscape of the contemporary Caribbean, reinforcing social hierarchies and injustices that ought to have been vigorously challenged and abandoned. Jamaica’s conflicted attachment to the symbols, ceremonial, and power structures of its colonial past is presently a matter of intensive debate, as Barbados has just become a Republic and last year removed its most prominent colonial statue, of Lord Nelson. The question arises whether Jamaica is doing enough to recognize, remove, and seek redress for its colonial legacies. Bailey’s current body of work, Post-colonial Paraphernalia, could thus not have been timelier, as it delves poignantly into these issues. It examines with great acuity the increasingly controversial preoccupation with colonial symbols and paraphernalia, such as the wearing of ceremonial gowns and periwigs, which is still common in parliaments and the courts in the postcolonial world.
Greg Bailey’s Post-Colonial Paraphernalia exhibition is curated by Dr Veerle Poupeye, an art historian, curator and critic who is specialized in Caribbean art. She is the former Executive Director of the National Gallery of Jamaica. The second, revised and expanded edition of her book Caribbean Art is currently in publication.
A digital catalogue will be published, and the price list is available upon request. Creativ Space is located at the corner of Windsor Avenue and Old Hope Road and on-site parking is available. The opening hours of the exhibition are 11 am to 6:30 pm, Mondays to Saturdays, and by appointment. Covid 19 protocols will be observed, with mandatory hand sanitation and masks. All are cordially invited.
Contact information: Veerle Poupeye, email: vpcuratorial@gmail.com, mobile and WhatsApp: (876)579-8282; or: Greg Bailey, email: greg.gb.bailey@gmail.com, mobile and WhatsApp: (876)434-6039.
